


Losing Control

by fid_gin, unfolded73



Series: The Lostverse [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 15:44:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10642968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fid_gin/pseuds/fid_gin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: Originally published November 2008.This story picks up literally minutes after the end of Still Lost. When we last left our intrepid adventurers, Donna, Rose, and the Doctor had just bid farewell to the folks at Torchwood, the morning after Rose's dramatic return from the altverse. How are the Doctor and Rose going handle their brand new romantic relationship? How is Donna going to handle either of them?





	1. Chapter 1

The main thing that had changed about Messaline, Donna thought, pulling her jacket tighter around her with one hand and angling her umbrella against the sideways sheet of rain with the other, was that it was now very green and very wet. The Doctor, looking like a drowned rat and grinning hugely through the deluge, babbled something about "atmospheric disturbance due to hyper-vegetative acceleration" which she didn't really pay attention to, while Rose smiled sweetly at him and remarked that he might have told her to bring her wellies. The bunch that came out to meet them were impressed nearly to the point of awe when the Doctor introduced himself, and before Donna knew what was happening the three of them were whisked inside. Divested of their wet coats, they were told that there would be a banquet that night in their honour, after which they were invited to stay the night in the most posh lodging available, and 'no' would not be accepted as an answer.

So it was that she found herself poking at some suspicious grey gruel which Rose assured her wasn't that bad, while the Doctor inquired of their hosts about Jenny's fate and grew increasingly more animated as the story was related to him. No one there had actually seen the girl return from the dead, but the tales had passed down through generations going _weeks_ back of how she had risen from her slab, stolen a small spaceship and fled the planet. It seemed to occur to him almost as an afterthought to turn to Rose and explain Jenny's origins, and Donna did not miss the look of relief which flitted across the young woman's face when she learned that the Doctor's daughter was simply the product of him sticking his hand into a machine. Donna could only guess what lurid imaginings had probably weighed on Rose's mind regarding the circumstances of Jenny's 'birth'.

Donna realized that things were a bit awkward between Rose and the Doctor at the moment. There was the previous night, and you didn't need to be a rocket scientist or a Time Lord to figure out what the two of them had gotten up to from the dopey smiles on their faces that morning. But then it had been straight on to Messaline with hardly a pause for breath, and Donna didn't think the two of them had been alone in the same room since. Rose had the look of a smitten young girl who was both terrified and enthralled at the idea of being alone with the object of her affection, and the Doctor just looked oblivious. Donna sincerely hoped he wouldn't just regress into pretending nothing that happened between them, out of habit or tradition.

She noticed Rose stifle a yawn against the back of her hand. _Doubt she got much sleep last night,_ she thought, and then pushed that thought out of her mind immediately. The Doctor's sex life was not something she wanted to speculate on.

Their hosts had noticed it as well, and insisted they show them to their rooms. Donna had assumed the Doctor and Rose would be boarded together, naturally. They had as well, as was apparent from their reactions when the first door they were brought to was announced as being 'the women's quarters'.

The Doctor and Rose glanced at each other. "'Women's quarters'?" the Doctor asked, his voice high-pitched and confused.

"Of course," the young man who'd ushered them down the long hallway said with a polite smile.

"Um," Rose said. "Isn't the Doctor going to stay with us?"

The young man looked a bit scandalized at the suggestion. "That's not necessary, we have ample accommodations. Doctor, we have a room made up for you in the men's compound."

"But, couldn't I stay with the Doctor in his room?" Rose asked again, blushing slightly.

"I'm afraid not. No women allowed."

The couple looked slightly panicked, and Donna couldn't contain herself. "Are you stupid or something?" she asked their guide.

"Donna!" the Doctor exclaimed. He turned to the young man. "Of course, men's compound. Thank you so much." He stepped close to her. "This lot still reproduce by cloning, Donna," he explained in a low voice. "The men and women sleep separately. Do you want to start another revolution before they've recovered from their last one?"

"But you two..." She didn't make any effort to lower voice.

"Are ever so grateful for the hospitality!" he finished, smiling tightly and ushering her toward the door of their suite. The Doctor walked back to Rose and said something so quietly Donna couldn't hear, but their body language, how Rose's eyes fluttered closed briefly at his words, the way they seemed to lean towards each other, all suggested it was probably something indecent. Only their hands touched. The Doctor gave Rose one more smouldering look and then turned and let himself be led in the direction of what Donna guessed was this 'men's compound'. With a heavy sigh, Rose passed her at the entrance to their suite and walked to her room.

 

******** 

 

Rose let her hand hover over the console, looking at the green glow that filtered between her fingers. Messaline was behind them, and the TARDIS floated in the vortex. The trip had yielded little, other than confirmation at dinner the first night that Jenny had indeed failed to stay dead. Muttering something about "a nexus of terraforming and regeneration energy," the Doctor had been beside himself, his anxious tic of hands through hair even more pronounced than usual. Rose's encounter with Jenny during one of her inadvertent crossings from one universe to the other was what had given the Doctor hope that she might be alive. He had described the whole process of the girl's creation dismissively, but something in his eyes hinted that he felt quite deeply for this strange, accidental daughter. It made Rose wonder how many things like this she had missed in their years apart. They had stayed one additional day so that the humans and Hath could present the Doctor with some sort of formal expression of gratitude that consisted of a lot of long, boring speeches on the humans' part, and a lot of burbling by the Hath. Rose had pondered how many other civilizations would honour the Doctor in this way, if only he ever returned to the same place. 

It was early evening as Rose reckoned it, and the Doctor was, as far as she knew, still in the library. He'd said something about studying star charts, trying to predict where Jenny would go next. They still had not had any time alone together, but she found herself hesitant to interrupt him. Rose figured she had about one more day left in her before she lost all control and shagged him rotten against one of the TARDIS' coral pillars. She just hoped Donna would be out of the room when she did. She shivered, remembering the Doctor's words to her that first night on Messaline, when they found out they would not be allowed to sleep together. _“When we get back to the TARDIS, I swear,”_ he'd said, his eyes black and bottomless. _“There are so many things I want to do to you, Rose, I don't know if I can wait.”_ And yet, wait is exactly what he'd done. Maybe it wasn't as difficult for him as it was for her? Maybe he just didn't want her as much as he had implied? Sighing, she stretched up on tiptoe and reached toward the centre of the TARDIS' glow, wishing that the ship could tell her the things that the Doctor would not. 

"Look at you!"

The voice came from behind her, feminine, musical and amused, and Rose stumbled back from the TARDIS console, blushing slightly. She'd only just run her hand affectionately over the pulsing central energy column, but she'd not missed how the ship had seemed to hum an excited greeting, and now felt a bit like Donna had stumbled upon her being overly sentimental. She remembered herself and Sarah Jane, giggling over the Doctor's TARDIS-stroking.

But Donna made no snide remarks as she sauntered further into the large room, coming to stand beside Rose and gaze up in wonder at the control hub. "He's always going on about how this thing's alive, but you'd never know it, not usually." She smiled warmly at the younger woman. "I think it missed you, though. They both did."

Rose didn't need to ask who the other half of 'they both' was, and lowered her face for a moment, hiding a shy grin. It came to her with an uncomfortable start that she'd not really spent much time conversing alone with the Doctor's newest companion, since her first morning back aboard. In an eerie coincidence, Donna voiced her exact thoughts. "We haven't had much chance to talk, have we? S'pose you probably don't quite know what to make of me."

Rose considered this for a moment. "I know you've been... _are_ , a good friend to him. He needs that, especially now that - " She trailed off, gesturing toward herself in frustration, fumbling for the right words to explain that she was never going to be able to go back to the same kind of friendship she and the Doctor had once had. _That's love, I suppose,_ she thought to herself.

Donna didn't appear to notice her sudden shift in mood, just made an odd face and kept talking. "Long as you don't think...me'n him ever...no way. Never. He's all skin and bones, isn't he? And that _hair_ , and don't get me started about the suit! Surprised that thing doesn't walk around on its own." 

Rose laughed along with her for a moment, then as their laughter faded looked closely at Donna. "You're serious," she spoke in observation rather than a question. "You really never fancied him at all." 

"God, no!" Donna exclaimed. "I just wanted to travel, ended up looking after him in the process. He was a _complete_ mess without you." She gave a dramatic sigh. Rose felt a lump rising in her throat at the thought of all Donna had done just in the interest of helping the Doctor find her again, just to see him happy. Despite what the other woman said, she knew Donna adored the Doctor, just in a very different way than she did. 

"Thank you," she said finally, swiping at her suddenly damp cheeks. "Thank you so much." 

"Oh stop it," Donna said, looking up and attempting to blink back the tears in her own eyes. Thus the sight that greeted the Doctor as he entered the room a moment later was the two of them hugging through their tears and giggles. Looking terrified, he slowly backed out the room before walking in again, hands in his pockets. 

"Hello!" he said a little loudly, and they separated and attempted to get themselves under control, dabbing at eyes with sleeves and laughing at how ridiculous they must look. "What...what's going on?" the Doctor asked, a little unsteadily. 

Donna threw her arm around Rose's shoulder. "I was just telling my mate Rose, here, that you two need some proper time alone together." Rose looked over at her, confused. "I mean, think about it!" She indicated the Doctor with a sweep of her other hand. "The love of your life's been back all of three days, and you're gallivanting across the galaxy again like it's just another day at the office. In the meantime," she directed her attention back at both of them again, "you two can hardly take your eyes off each other, and _I'm_ going to be the one left fighting off the alien horde the first time we get into trouble. So until you both get if out of your system, I don't want to see or hear a trace of you, got it?" 

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "But Donna, Jenny--" 

"Can wait. We know she's alive and that's brilliant, but the search will keep. Besides, last time I checked, this is a time machine!" Donna held up a finger to stem any further protests. "It's not up for debate, space boy. You two need a honeymoon." 

The Doctor boggled at Donna, opening and closing his mouth. "We do _not_ \--" 

Rose had sidled up to him and cut him off by taking his hand. "I think it sounds like a brilliant idea. Don't you think it sounds like a brilliant idea?" 

"I ... oh. Well, now that you mention it, it does sound rather brilliant." He leaned in close enough to inhale the scent of her hair. "Really ... quite ..." 

Donna was already on her way out of the room. "Like I said, time alone. If you need me, I'll either be in the jacuzzi or catching up on old episodes of _Sex in the City_." 

Rose nuzzled his neck. "So, how shall we begin this so-called honeymoon, Doctor?" 

"Oh, I think I have an idea," the Doctor rasped. He pulled Rose by the hand. "Come on!" 

After a breathless run through the halls of the TARDIS, they fell against the door to his room ( _their room_ , Rose corrected herself) and half-tumbled through it. Their mouths met clumsily, messily, with too much saliva and teeth crashing together. The Doctor slammed the door hard with one hand while the other squeezed her breast. He fumbled with the zip to her hoodie, failing to get anywhere with it while he continued to nibble at her lips. Rose finally broke the kiss and stepped back, pulling down the zip herself and shrugging out of her top, letting it fall to the floor. The Doctor's hands had immediately gone to his own clothes, and he jerked the knot of his tie loose and pulled it over his head. 

Rose felt the loss of his touch acutely, and she hurried to shuck the rest of her clothes. This was still so new and she was shy being the focus of his undivided attention, but she pushed past it, unfastening her bra with awkward fingers and pulling her knickers off. The Doctor had finished struggling with his shoes and his hands went to the fastening of his trousers as Rose stepped close to him again. She kissed him and he sighed into her mouth. 

"I need ..." He didn't finish the thought, instead lowering his head to her shoulder. She felt his teeth scrape her skin, and she shivered at the resulting mixture of pleasure and pain. 

"What do you need, love?" she murmured. The endearment felt strange in her mouth, a luxury she'd never been able to indulge in before. Now she could express her feelings in every look, every touch, every word. 

Rose dropped to her knees and finished the job of undressing him. His cock stood out from his body and she closed a hand around it, feeling how hard he was. "Is this what you need?" she asked, and she licked the tip, savouring the taste of him. This was, of course, only the second time she had done this with him; the other had been on their first night together, in the last hours before dawn. He had spent the better part of an hour that night exploring her body with his mouth, bringing her to the edge over and over with his tongue before she finally crashed into a blinding orgasm. In spite of that, he had looked almost shocked as she had crawled down his body, and she had worried for a moment that this wasn't something he wanted. What did she know about Time Lord sex, anyway? His guttural moan at the first touch of her lips on his cock had put that concern to rest. He had babbled, filthy and beautiful words that thrilled her and spurred her on. But well before he truly lost control he had stopped her, encouraging her to straddle him, and what followed had been yet more spectacular sex.

Now, again, he stopped her, pulling her to her feet. "No, Rose." He kissed her, his emotion evident in the way he clutched her upper arms. "I love that, I do. I just ... I need to be inside you _right now_." He kissed her again, hard, his teeth grazing her lower lip. 

Her body felt limp, boneless as she allowed him to tumble her back onto the bed, his mouth sucking against the skin of her throat and his fingers working between her legs. So close already, she was afraid she'd finish before they even began, but he positioned himself and slid into her in one fluid movement and she was transported from any further apprehension. All that mattered was here and now. 

His breath caught, and he stilled for a moment then began to move. His pace was slow, just enough to keep her on the edge, and she whimpered for more just before he withdrew nearly completely, and then brought her to an impossibly quick orgasm by thrusting back inside, hard and deep. "Yes...that's it..." he whispered as she trembled beneath him. His own eyes were closed, his face a mask of intense pleasure - mouth open and the tip of his tongue resting just against the inside of his teeth, he seemed to be savouring the moment like a fine wine. When her shudders finally subsided, he smiled and opened his eyes before beginning to drive into her again, his former control seemingly exhausted. "I absolutely love the feel of you coming around me, Rose," he panted. "So...tight..." The Doctor's speech deteriorated into an amalgam of enthusiastic smut and dirty talk, woven together with an eloquence only he could be capable of at such a moment. Rose clung to him as he started to come, and he let go of a pained groan through his clenched teeth. He thrust into her a few more times before collapsing in her arms. Rose kissed his shoulder, damp with sweat. He wasn't heavy, and she was content to let him lie on top of her for as long as he liked. She hummed happily, and it turned into a giggle as she relaxed. 

"What?" the Doctor asked, lifting up and sliding out of her before he fell at her side. 

"I think we're getting really good at that, don't you?" Rose stretched her legs, then sat up and pulled the covers up over them both. 

"I think we were pretty good at it the first time." 

"We were." She reached over and brushed his hair away from his forehead. "So that was what we, on Earth, call 'a quickie'." 

"'Quickie', hmm?" he repeated, seeming to roll the word around on his tongue. "I like it. Although it was a bit...quick. And, I was a little rough with you. I didn't mean to be, I just, I feel so ..." He trailed off helplessly. 

"You think I didn't like it? You being so forceful?" Rose kissed him, smiling against his mouth. "I mean, I don't want it that way every time, but it was _very_ sexy." 

"Oh." 

"As long as you let me be the one in charge sometimes." 

"Absolutely." His expression was somewhere between a leer and adoringly sweet, and Rose giggled again, making the Doctor frown. "You keep laughing at me." 

"I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing because I'm so happy." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah. After all that time wanting to be back here, back with you, knowing that I couldn't really expect it to be like this between us, but I hoped ..." She hugged him tight, and they held each other, enjoying the afterglow.


	2. Chapter 2

"So, what shall we do with all this time alone together that Donna has required us to take?" the Doctor asked, stretching and feeling more relaxed than he recalled being ... well, in a long, long time. Rose raised an eyebrow at his question. "I mean besides that." 

She pulled out of his embrace and flopped onto her stomach. "I don't know. Feed each other strawberries, drink champagne, ... talk about what you've been doing with yourself since we got separated?" 

He winced, his mind flitting from one uncomfortable topic to another. "I'm definitely on board with the first two." 

Rose smiled widely at him with the half of her mouth not pressed against her pillow. "Don't want to tell me about the other women you fell in love with and asked to come travelling with you, is that it?" Her smile quickly faltered at what he knew was a look of terrified surprise on his face. "Doctor?" He didn't answer - rose out of bed and began tugging his trousers back on, attempting to dodge the conversation. "I know you're new to this relationship thing, so I'll explain this to you," she began, her words slow and careful. "When I make a joke like that, you're supposed to take the opportunity to assure me that there hasn't been anyone else who even came close to me." 

He turned to her at that, his expression earnest. "There hasn't been anyone else who came close to you." 

"But you've invited other women to travel with you, other than Donna," she finished. 

He pulled his shirt on and, not bothering with the buttons, sat on the edge of the bed. "Rose, you were _gone_. Would you rather I had been alone?" She rolled away from him, and he hated the sudden feeling of dread that settled in his stomach. He was terrified of doing something wrong and mucking everything up. "Rose," he said softly. 

"How many?" she asked in a small voice. 

"Including Donna? Because the first time I asked her, she said no. Did I tell you about the Racnoss - it was right after I had said goodbye to you and Donna had been dosed with Huon Particles..." 

"Including Donna." 

The Doctor stopped his nervous rambling and sighed heavily, counting in his mind. There was Martha, of course. And Jack...did he have to count Jack, since he wasn't a woman? Oh, and Joan. And Astrid. "Including Donna, I have asked four women to travel with me since I lost you. Excluding Donna, only one did. Again excluding Donna, none of the situations ended very well and most of it was probably all my fault. None of them, not one, came even close to replacing you. No one ever could..." His voice grew strained as he struggled to explain, and she finally turned back toward him, her eyes wide and her expression unreadable. She reached up and cupped the side of his face. Flooded with relief, he closed his eyes and leaned down to kiss her deeply, stretching out next to her. 

"You don't have to tell me about them, not right now," she said when their lips parted. "But part of being in love is wanting to tell the other person everything, and if I'm going to be with you for the rest of my life then we're going to have a lot to talk about." 

Her words pained him, made him feel completely out of his depth, which was something he almost never experienced. "That isn't something I know how to do." 

She smiled up at him. "I waited for how many years just for you to work up the courage to kiss me? I think I can be patient while you learn." There was a long, pregnant pause. "It only seems fair... I mean, there's probably something you should know, too." 

"Please don't. Just... don't." He flinched at the raw, pleading edge to his voice. Whatever she was about to confess to, he knew he didn't want to know it. 

"Okay," she said finally. He curled up next to her, enfolding her in his arms. Seemingly exhausted, she eventually drifted into uneasy sleep, and she didn't stir when, an hour or so later, the Doctor slipped from their bed and went to the kitchen. 

Donna looked up from the book she was reading as he walked in and put the kettle on. "Where's Rose?"

"Sleeping."

Once his tea was made, he collapsed into the chair across from Donna. There was some comfort in the familiarity of it, the two of them sitting there, each in their own worlds. 

"What's your problem?" Surprised, the Doctor looked up to see Donna frowning at him over her coffee mug. 

"I don't have a problem. Why do you think I have a problem?" 

"Because the last time I checked, getting back together with the love of your life was a _good_ thing. A brilliant thing, in point of fact. And you look ... I don't know, terrified. Why aren't you happy?" 

"I _am_ happy." 

"You don't look happy." 

"Donna, I'm happy. Of course I'm happy, Rose is _here_. Why wouldn't I be happy?" 

Donna snorted. "You tell _me_ , space man." 

The Doctor sighed and said nothing. He went back to his staring contest with his cup of tea, and Donna went back to her book. Finally, he forced himself to spit out what was preying on him. "It's just ... I'm not used to _being_ like this. It's dreadful." 

"Being like what?" 

"Being so ..." he gestured vaguely. "Out of control. Emotional. Sweaty." 

" _Sweaty?_ " Donna tried not to laugh, but only succeeded in making an odd grimace. 

"You know what I mean. I don't like it." 

"You're in love, you're supposed to be out of control and emotional. Besides, wasn't it like this before, when you were with Rose before you lost her?" 

He shook his head. "I didn't allow myself to _feel_ it this way. There were walls, mental walls. Now it's like she's bulldozed them completely, and I can't rebuild them." 

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Walls?" 

"It's a Time Lord thing," he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. 

"Okay. But, I mean, why would you want to rebuild them? You've let Rose into your life in a way that you didn't before, but that's _good_. Isn't it?" 

"Sure it is," he said quickly, shrugging his shoulders.

"God, you're impossible sometimes!" Donna said. 

" _What?_ " His voice rose to a pitch unbecoming of his gender. 

"Only you could sit here, with a woman sleeping in your bedroom who adores you, and who you adore, and complain because she's making you feel too many _feelings_. Do you not see how lucky you are? Do you know how many people would kill to feel what you're experiencing? To have found the person they're meant for?" 

" _Meant_ for? I thought you didn't believe in all that." 

She sighed. "I don't. But my point still stands; you're lucky. If you knew how much I used to fantasize about it - finding that special someone, falling in love, getting married." She shrugged, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. "Now I know it just doesn't work out that way for most people." Before he could respond she stood up from the table, gathering up her novel and her coffee. "Just, appreciate what you have, and try to enjoy it. I'll see you later. _Much_ later, I mean it!" She jabbed one finger in his direction in a vaguely threatening gesture accompanied by a cheeky wink, and then was gone. 

 

******** 

 

"The _Titanic_?! Who'd name their ship the _Titanic_?" 

"Wellll, it _is_ probably the most famous ship in Earth history. And the benefactor did have a bit of a sinister agenda, as it turns out..." 

They were lying in bed, mostly naked except for rumpled bed linens wound around a long expanse of leg here, or the curve of a hip there. Talking, as had become their custom during their 'honeymoon' between bouts of passionate lovemaking and short breaks for eating and bathing. Rose was quickly learning that, in the bedroom just as outside of it, the Doctor had an inexplicable need to be in control of the situation, of himself. She'd yet to stumble upon the right combination of words or actions that might make him relinquish a bit of that self-imposed discipline, but she was learning.

"Then what happened?" The Doctor had reached the part in the tale after he'd steered the vessel away from Buckingham Palace and saved the Earth, and he apparently intended to just let the story end there. But Rose had a feeling there was, as usual, more that he wasn't telling her.

And then the strangest thing happened. The Doctor continued to talk. "I remembered that there was a failsafe in the teleportation device, meant to save anyone who might get hurt or killed on a surface trip. But there...there wasn't enough power, and she - Astrid - she died."

Rose was silent for a long while, thinking about how it must have been for him, to find someone he genuinely liked, and who liked him, and then to lose her so quickly. She brushed her fingers up his arm. "I'm sorry," she said, softly.

He turned his head and his eyes, full of surprised gratitude, met hers. "Thank you."

"You can't save everyone. Not all the time."

"Seem to fail at it more often than not, don't I? Sir Robert, Astrid, Jenny...you..." His voice trailed off as she scooted up against him and brought one leg up to rest over his body, rolling her pelvis against his hip.

"Oi," she said against his ear, and he shivered at her warm breath. "You got me back, remember?"

"Donna got you back."

"Because you taught her how." She sucked his earlobe into her mouth briefly and he groaned and reached for her, but she slipped out of his reach at the last moment, releasing his ear with a pop. "Just like you taught me to never give up trying to find you. Just like you taught Jack that living forever isn't so bad if you allow yourself to fall in love now and then. An' just like you'll teach Jenny what it means to be a Time Lord." Rose sat back on her heels and picked up one of his hands, the fingers long and graceful. She brought it to her mouth, taking the first two joints of his index finger into her mouth and sucking. Slowly, she pulled it out and did the same with the next finger, and the next. His eyes, full of a kind of desperate longing, never wavered from her face.

Getting up on hands and knees, she crawled over his body, letting the tips of her hair drag over his chest as she kissed her way down to his stomach and then toward where he had already grown hard again from her ministrations. Incredibly he stayed silent, except for the uneven whisper of his breathing.

"You teach people how to be better than what they were," she continued, moving her lips against the plane of his abdomen as she spoke. His cock twitched when the smooth skin of her cheek slid along it as she moved further down, kissing her way to the junction of thigh and pelvis, then back up to linger over his hipbone. "You do so much for so many, you never ask for anything in return." She switched to the other side of his body, repeating the same action, still skirting his straining erection. "When was the last time you let someone do for you? Just for you?" She didn't get an answer. The Doctor seemed overcome, too undone to formulate thoughts. It was almost inconceivable. 

Rose positioned herself between his thighs, urging him to bend the knee of one leg. She planted an open-mouthed kiss on the inside of that knee and began working her way up his inner thigh at the same slow pace. She felt his muscles tremble under her mouth and he gasped as her hair got close enough to brush against his cock. Her tongue darted out and touched his skin, so close to where he wanted it, and the Doctor whimpered with want and frustration. Grinning, she bent his other knee to repeat the same slow progress up his thigh. "Everywhere out there, you're the one in control, the one who has to lead, who has to be strong. Let this be the one place where you don't have to be in control. Let this be the one place where you can just let go." 

Before he could anticipate it, she finally moved her mouth over his cock and kissed the tip, and he mewled as his hands found the back of her head and twisted in her hair. "Please."

"Please what?" she asked, leaning back, teasing. She pursed her lips and blew gently across the wet spot her mouth had made at the head of his cock, and he hissed as his hips jerked.

"Rose." His voice was strained, pleading.

"I want you to say it," she continued, trying to make her voice sound calm and instructive. "You don't have any trouble being talkative when we're doing it - you can tell me what you want now." She leaned back down to again ghost her lips across where, if the pressure he was exerting on the back of her head was any indication, he wanted them so badly. The Doctor's chest rose and fell rapidly.

She heard one word, a nearly inaudible rasp, but one she felt at the apex of her thighs as though he had physically touched her there:

"Suck."

And she did as he asked, taking him fully into her mouth, cushioning him on her tongue and applying gentle suction with her lips as she withdrew then swallowed him again, deeper. He was gasping words, repeated affirmations of "Yes, _yes,_ " punctuated with her name. His fingers slid from the back of her skull around to the sides of her face where the muscles of her jaw worked, stretching wide to accommodate the width and length of him. Moaning encouragement around his cock, the vibration tingled in her lips and seemed to heighten his pleasure.

"Ah...Rose. Love you...so much. Don't stop."

She shifted sideways, tilting her head a bit to afford him a better view, and noted with satisfaction how he raised his head slightly to watch her mouth rise and fall on him. After a moment, he let his head fall back onto the pillow with a long moan. "Yours," he gasped. "I'm yours. Oh ... please ..."

Rose could tell he was getting close. He held her face nearly immobile now, then began to buck his hips upward and cry out with each thrust. She thought she felt him try to push her away just before he came with a shout, but she only increased her suction, drawing his climax out of him, swallowing every drop until he softened in her mouth and her lips rested against crinkly brown hair before she finally released him. Smiling up at him, she pointedly wiped one finger under her bottom lip, then sucked it clean. He watched her, his mouth hanging agape, his breath still coming in shallow pants. Stretching out next to him, Rose prepared to engage in their usual post-coital cuddling, and was surprised when the Doctor suddenly rolled and crushed her to his chest. He kissed her, thoroughly and passionately.

When he pulled back, his wide, chocolatey eyes were full of barely contained emotion. "I was such a fool. I had no idea." He smiled with what she could only call wonder.

"No idea about what?"

He shook his head. "I thought that I knew what it was to love you. I thought I understood, before…" He stroked her face, and then he pressed his forehead against hers.

They stayed that way for a long moment, his eyes closed, his breathing slowly returning to normal. Rose didn't say anything for fear of breaking the mood - she sensed that, as special as this moment was for her, somehow it was intensely more so for the Doctor. After a minute, his eyes opened again, crinkling at the corners as he smiled, and he flopped over onto his back.

A few seconds later, she became aware that he was giggling, silently, his chest shaking as he stared up at the TARDIS ceiling with a goofy grin on his face. "What?" she asked.

"I'm just..." He trailed off.

Rose thought she knew exactly what he was trying to say. "Happy?" she suggested, and he smiled over at her, gratefully.

"Yeah."

 

********

 

When they emerged much, much later, _days_ probably if one kept track of such things in the TARDIS, the Doctor felt like a new Time Lord. His head felt heavy, a bit groggy with sex and more sleep than he was used to, but otherwise physically and certainly emotionally he felt good. Better than good, _brilliant_. He couldn't keep the smile off his face as he and Rose entered the library, looking for Donna, their hands joined and fingers entwined.

They had obviously not been sequestered as long as the Doctor had previously thought - Donna didn't appear to have expected them back quite yet, if her state of lounging in her ratty blue gown and slippers with some sort of chalky green substance smeared all over her face was anything to go on. She yelped when she looked up from her magazine and saw them both standing there. The magazine was quickly held up in front of her face.

"You might _announce_ yourselves when you walk into a room instead of _scaring_ me half to death," her voice came from behind the glossy pages.

"Donna, what's happened to your face?" the Doctor asked, honestly curious, and Rose elbowed him.

"It's for my pores," she answered, from the sound of it, through gritted teeth.

"What's wrong with your pores?" he asked, innocently. "They all look fine to me."

The magazine dropped and Donna looked positively murderous. She slapped the periodical down next to her on the sofa and got up to storm past both of them on her way out of the room. When she returned several minutes later, her face was freshly scrubbed, clean and shining. Not that they noticed at first.

"Oh _god_ ," Donna exclaimed as they jumped apart when she re-entered the room. "I think I liked you two better before." She sat back down and picked up her magazine again. "So, you're back then?" she asked. "'Bout time, I was beginning to go mad in this place. No soaps, half the books are in other languages, and we're out of coffee!"


	3. Chapter 3

Donna expected the Doctor to immediately resume the search for his daughter, and was surprised when he seemed in no particular hurry to do so. When the Doctor and Rose finally emerged from their bedroom, (and no amount of money would have convinced Donna to set foot in _there_ ; who knows what sorts of depraved activities they had been getting up to, probably on every available flat surface) their first trip was to an out-of-the-way planet to watch a massive butterfly migration. Which _was_ pretty brilliant, Donna had to admit. Then it was "fancy a trip to the beach?" from the Doctor, and off they went again, Donna cackling at the site of the Doctor trying to pilot the TARDIS whilst still holding on to Rose's hand.

Closing the police box door behind her, Donna followed the Doctor and Rose as they crested a high dune. She found herself looking down at a wide expanse of shoreline, lit up by the late afternoon sunlight. The sun in question, redder than the one Donna had grown up under, was an enormous fiery ball in the sky, and it made the ocean look more like lava than water.

"Here we are!" the Doctor proclaimed, skittering down the dune, his trainers sliding in the sand. Rose bounded after him, laughing as she fell on her rear at the bottom. Donna shook her head and proceeded down at a more measured pace as the Doctor pulled Rose up from the ground, both of them giggling like loons.

"Where's here?" Rose was asking as Donna caught up with them.

"One of the famed beaches of Crimpellion III, that's where!" the Doctor said expansively.

Donna looked around, nonplussed. "If it's so famed, where are all the people?"

"Wellll, it will be famed. Once it's discovered, about ... five thousand years from now?"

Rolling her eyes, Donna remarked, "So you could've taken us to a time when I could rent a beach chair and sit sipping a mai tai, and instead you bring us to a time when we're the only sentient life on the planet?"

Rose snorted at that. "She's got a point."

"You don't want to see it then, too crowded! This is the way to see it, undisturbed, unmarred by luxury hotels. Beautiful!" His expression changed as he met Rose's eyes, and he murmured in a lower voice. "I just thought, you and me, we needed some happy associations with beaches."

Donna frowned at the resulting sad smile from Rose, and stopped the questions before they came pouring out of her mouth. _Sometimes even I know when it's best not to pry,_ she thought. "Well, I hope at least there are some nice shells on this beach," Donna said, making a point of walking away to give them some space. 

Looking up from her search several minutes later, Donna couldn't help but smirk at the romance novel cover they made, kissing in front of that dazzling sunset. That is, if romance novel covers featured skinny blokes in long, brown coats, which in her experience, they did not. _Lance used to kiss me like that,_ she thought suddenly, and was satisfied when she felt only a tiny prick of pain in her chest. It wasn't that it had taken so long to get over Lance himself, more that it had taken a long time to get over having _someone_. It had been nice, having someone. And then, it had been nice not-having someone, along with the Doctor. A small, bitter smile crossed her face as she remembered her and the Doctor, two lost souls rattling about in that box, quibbling like brother and sister and never alone as long as they had each other. Donna liked Rose, liked her a great deal as a matter of fact. But she realized, watching them silhouetted against the alien twilight, that she missed having her good mate to herself. Or maybe, she thought, she just missed being the centre of attention. She had gone to such efforts to convince Rose that she had no romantic jealousy, when the truth was, she _was_ jealous. Things between Donna and the Doctor would never be the way they were before, and how could a part of her not regret that loss? 

They didn't notice her noticing them, of course - were entirely wrapped up in each other, as they had been since their little holiday aboard the TARDIS. Donna assured herself, trying to ignore that the fact that she had been doing so more frequently these last few days, that she did _not_ feel excluded. _Good for them,_ she thought, kicking a bit of sand up with her sandals as she continued her walk along the shoreline. _We should all be so lucky. Maybe once they get this mooning for each other out of their systems, we'll land somewhere where something's, y'know - happening._

Except then the Doctor took them to the 38th Lunar Colonization Celebration, where he attempted to demonstrate the joys of low-gravity candy floss. And then it was the Tri-Annual Android Dance-off of Throlac 23a. "Where they _don't_ , actually, allow The Robot," the Doctor explained as they purchased their passes. "It's considered cheating." Donna sighed as they made their way to their seats, adjusting her binoculars and resigning herself to another day of no running, no panic, no excitement. It was getting a bit mundane, really. Even Rose looked slightly bored as she munched the puffed grain that was this planet's version of popped corn.

At their next stop, Donna stepped out of the TARDIS first, looked around, and pronounced, sarcastically: "Oh, what a surprise. It's a petting zoo."

The Doctor, emerging behind her, looked insulted. "It is _not_ a _'petting zoo'_ , Donna."

Rose followed him, taking in their surroundings. The exotic beasts in large, lavish pens, and the small children of various species ogling them, clutching their parents' hands. "It's a bit Zoo though, isn't it, Doctor?"

"It's a _mutual living situation_. These creatures are here by choice and have agreed to have their homes displayed for the enjoyment of others who might not normally have the opportunity to see them in their natural habitat. It is not a _zoo_." The Doctor seemed to spit out the last word with distaste.

"What's that?" Donna asked, gesturing towards the entrance to a tunnel which appeared to lead underground.

"Those are the water exhibits," the Doctor replied simply.

Donna shook her head. "Zoo," she reiterated, then wandered off before the Doctor could disagree again.

Despite her misgivings, she had to admit it was pretty impressive. For a zoo. Large, hairy, elephantine creatures which walked on two legs stripped blue leaves from trees, stopping once in awhile to wave or pose for a flashing camera. One area was occupied by large, twisting vines which reached out to tousle the hair of onlookers. "Oi!" she shouted as one overly-friendly branch reached for her own ginger locks. "Hands...I mean, twigs off!" After an hour or so of wandering, her feet were starting to complain and she was looking for a likely place to sit down when she spotted Rose nearby on an outcropping of rock. She plopped down next to her, reached into her pocket and produced a small metal tin, which she opened and offered to Rose. "Mint?"

"Thanks," Rose said as she took one. Donna watched as Rose turned back to look out over the scenery, her gaze far away.

"That's quite the thousand-yard stare you've got there," Donna commented.

Rose smiled ruefully. "Just thinking about my mum."

"Big zoo full of scary aliens make you think about your mum, does it?"

Rose laughed. "The Doctor would say you don't know how right you are."

"What's she like?"

"Maddening, a lot of the time. Stubborn. Loyal to her family. Funny. Crass."

"Sounds like quite the character. I bet I would've liked her," Donna commented.

"You would've liked the way she could take the Doctor down a peg or two when she wanted to."

"Ha! Wish I could see that!" Donna's laugh was cut short by the sad expression on Rose's face. "Oh, Rose, I didn't mean to ... I'm sorry."

Rose waved her off. "No, it's fine. It's just ... when I think about all the heartache I've caused her ..."

"That's what children do, though. Give their parents grief."

Rose sighed. "Most of them don't do what I've done. 'M never going to see her again. Or Mickey, or Pete ..."

"That must have been a terrible decision to make. The man that you love or your family."

"The terrible thing is how easy the decision was. The Doctor ... I've loved him for so long, and I always knew I'd choose him over anyone else. I never wavered from that," Rose said. "I guess that makes me a pretty selfish person."

Donna shook her head. "I have a grandfather at home, and I love him more than anything in the world. He's in pretty good health for his age, but still, he probably doesn't have a whole lot of time left. It bothers me, knowing what I could be missing, and I think about him every day. But even given all that, I wouldn't make a different choice. Travelling with the Doctor is the most amazing thing that I've ever done, that I will _ever_ do. And I'm not even in love with him!" Rose smirked, looking down at her hands. "My point is, your choice is understandable. It's the choice that your mum probably would've made in your shoes, and I bet she knows that."

"The thing is though, Donna," Rose continued after a moment. "He's...different."

"What d'you mean, 'different'? This isn't gonna be about your sex life, is it?" She elbowed the younger girl to show she was only kidding, but Rose went on as if she hadn't even heard the joke.

"He's...more cautious. He used to be more spontaneous. More... _alien_." Rose looked as if she was afraid of being chastised for making such a statement.

Well, she should have been. "You have _got_ to be _kidding me_." Donna gestured toward her surroundings in exasperation. "The two of you, I swear! First he's unhappy because he's too... _happy_ , and now you're complaining that the man with two hearts who carts you through time and outer space in blue box that's bigger on the inside isn't _alien enough_. Do you hear yourselves when you talk?" She took another look around them. "Mind you, there did used to be a lot more running and a lot less...zoos."

Donna looked up and saw the Doctor walking towards them, all smiles and hands deep in his pockets. At that moment, there was a spectacular crash from some ways away on their left, followed by what sounded like a deep roar and several screams. The Doctor froze, the smile quickly vanishing from his face. He ran the last few steps over to them as they both rose from their stony bench. "Come on!" he shouted, grabbing Rose's hand and pulling her along with him.

"Now that's more like it!" Donna said, following behind them as they ran alongside the throngs of panicked crowds. It suddenly occurred to Donna that something was wrong - they were running _away_ from the noise. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the TARDIS in front of them, where they'd parked on a little grassy knoll near the entrance. "Wait, Doctor!" she called, slowing to a standstill as she tried to catch her breath. "The trouble's _that_ way!" Jerking a thumb over her shoulder in the direction they'd come.

Rose had noticed, too, and was pulling back against the Doctor's grip. "We have to go help!" she said. The Doctor didn't appear to be listening, was instead fumbling in his coat for his key.

"That was a Z'murrt. An _angry_ Z'murrt, and we're not going anywhere near it."

"But you said all the animals were here 'cause they wanted to be, that it was a 'living situation'!" Rose argued. The Doctor looked back thoughtfully toward where the chaos and shrieks and smashing noises went on.

"Oh...tenant dispute?" he posited. He went back to twisting the key into the lock.

"But that's what we _do_!" Rose continued, finally wrenching her hand free of his. "Fix disputes! Help!" The Doctor had gotten the door open, and was trying to guide her inside with his hand on her back. "We have to go back!"

"Rose," he said in what Donna thought of as his do-what-the-Doctor-says voice. "Get inside." Neither of the women made a move toward the TARDIS, just stood staring open-mouthed at him. "Please!"

The cacophony was growing closer, the crowds of people running away from it growing thicker. Some of them had injuries. A young woman looked over her shoulder as she was running and stumbled, falling to the ground, and Donna instinctively made a move to go to her. "Donna, we have to leave. _NOW!_ " the Doctor shouted. Over the bobbing heads of the fleeing, Donna could make out a huge, lumbering shape coming behind them. A lumbering shape with several pointy tusks. Casting a guilty look at the young woman who was still struggling to get to her feet in the stampede of people, she walked inside the TARDIS. The Doctor turned back to Rose. "Rose, inside." Donna looked back through the doors, saw the blonde shaking her head. The Doctor took a step towards her. _"GET INSIDE!"_ he shrieked into her face, and she saw Rose flinch, her face scrunching up with tears as she stalked into the TARDIS, but still, unmistakably, furious.

After the doors had shut and the Doctor had dematerialized them, he started to leave the room. "Oh no you don't," Rose hissed, following close on his heels, and Donna found herself, again, alone. No way was she going to put herself between those two, much as she might like to give the Doctor a talking-to herself.

"Not exactly how I envisioned travelling through time and space," she sighed, flopping into the jumpseat. Around her, the TARDIS almost seemed to grind its gears in sympathy.

*******

Rose nearly had to run to keep up with the Doctor as he walked quickly from the console room, turning suddenly down odd hallways, the back of the blue suit he'd worn that day vanishing around corners every time she'd caught sight of it again. She took a vicious swipe at the tears that had started the moment he had screamed in her face. "Doctor!" she called after him, and she thought he might have slowed. A little.

Finally, breathless, she reached him and grabbed his shoulder. She was still enraged at his behaviour, had been ready to lay a Tyler family slap across his cheek for acting like such a...a _coward_. That wasn't her Doctor, that wasn't the Doctor she'd crossed dimensions to come back to. But his expression when he turned to her was disarming. He wasn't afraid - he was miserable. "What the hell was that?" she asked instead.

"Rose," he grated out, staring off towards the juncture of wall and ceiling as though it were the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. "I don't want to argue about this."

"Well, tough, because we are bloody well going to argue about this! You can't just ... why are you acting this way?"

"What way?" he responded shortly.

She swept her arm back towards the labyrinth of hallways they'd just come from. "Why didn't we stay and help those people? They were hurt!"

"The authorities on the planet will take care of it."

She stared at him. "Are you _serious_? When has that ever stopped you before? This isn't you." 

"It's been a long time, Rose, maybe you don't know me as well as you think."

"I know you used to give a damn what happened to other people!" she shouted.

His face turned hard and cold, and Rose was suddenly struck with how many of his years she could see in his eyes. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he growled.

"Then explain it to me."

He still would not meet her eyes. "I was protecting my companions. That's what I do...or don't you remember?"

"Bollocks," Rose spat back. "What about letting me get zapped into a Dalek ship, or almost sacrificed up to a werewolf, or possessed by a narcissistic flap of skin and lipstick? Or getting my face erased? What about _Jack_?" The Doctor winced visibly, but still didn't look down from the ceiling. "All you _do_ is put us in danger, because you have to, and because you have to trust that we know how to take care of ourselves. When did that change?"

He finally rolled his eyes downward to meet hers. "When you fell off the lever and proved that you can't," he answered quietly.

Rose thought her heart would break. This wasn't about him. This was about _her_. He didn't trust her not to muck things up and get herself killed, or lost, not any more. She realized, looking back over their last several stops, that the Doctor had been purposefully picking safe locations just to avoid putting them in the path of any potential danger, and all because of her.

She could barely speak. "Right," she said finally, her voice choked with more severe tears. Without another word she turned and ran, her hand over mouth to smother the sobs that were trying so hard to break free.

"Rose!" she heard him call out behind her, but she didn't turn back. She'd disappointed him. This was going to be their lives now: avoiding danger instead of fighting it. Playing it safe. It wasn't fair to him, or to Donna, and it was all her fault.

For the first time, she wondered if she'd made a horrible mistake in coming back. She'd never missed her mum so badly in her life.


	4. Chapter 4

Donna had expected them to vanish for the rest of the afternoon after the disastrous zoo visit. She was blessedly unaware of the more intimate details of the Doctor's life, but she assumed that the process of making up after a row was probably similar to that of humans, and that the Doctor and Rose would need some time to themselves. So when Rose found her in the kitchen pouring herself a glass of wine and scooping out a small bowl of ice cream, Donna was a bit taken aback. She was even moreso when the young woman ran up to her, threw her arms around her neck and sobbed into her shoulder. This was very much not the type of behaviour she'd come to expect from Rose, and her first instinct was to extract herself from the rather damp embrace, but she remembered back to their conversation on that rock earlier in the day. _Poor thing doesn't have any friends in this universe, or any family,_ she thought, slowly bringing her arms up to return the hug. _Just the Doctor._

"Shhh," she said, awkwardly patting at Rose's back in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. "It's all right." 

"He...he said..." Rose was struggling to speak around her sobs. 

"Oh who gives a damn what he said," Donna snapped, pulling back and looking at Rose's face. She swept her thumbs under the girl's eyes, wiping away some of the tears. "There. Come on," she said, stepping away and grabbing down a second wine glass from the cupboard, and another, larger bowl. They sat at the table with a glass of wine each and Rose tucked into her bowl of chocolate ice cream with an enthusiasm that assured Donna that at least her appetite wasn't suffering from being isolated from her friends and family. 

"M'sorry for crying all over you," she mumbled around a mouthful. "Usually only my mum sees me lose it like that." Her voice grew strained around the mention of her mother.

Donna waved her hand, trying to steer the conversation away from the things that Rose had left behind. "Don't mention it." She tentatively approached the subject of the Doctor. "Now, what did he say? What's all this 'do-as-I-say-and-get-inside' nonsense about?" She'd lowered her voice and twisted her accent in an approximation of his. 

Rose giggled briefly at Donna's impersonation. She stabbed at her ice cream with her spoon, staring down into the melting mess. "He thinks," she started slowly, "that he has to protect us both now. He thinks he can't do what he has to, he can't put us in a situation where we might get hurt, because... Because it was my fault that I fell of that lever at Canary Wharf and got stranded in the parallel world and he can't trust me not to do it again." Her eyes welled with more tears.

Donna's hand froze where it had been guiding her wine glass to her lips. "He said _what_?" She set the glass down again. "Did he actually say that all that was your fault?" Rose nodded glumly. "I am gonna _kill_ that bloody alien." She cocked her head and studied Rose for a moment. "You know he doesn't mean any of that, right? You know he's just acting like this because he's afraid of losing you again?" 

Rose was silent for a moment. "I jus' keep thinking back to that day at Canary Wharf. The lever went offline and was falling over, and the Daleks were starting to hover and float in mid-air. If it'd been the Doctor's lever, he would've known what to do, but I didn't know! I just knew that if the wall closed, they'd start shooting. They'd exterminate both of us and then the rest of the world. So I climbed onto it and pushed it back up, and he was screaming at me to hang on, but I just...I wasn't strong enough." She sniffled and pushed her ice cream away, took up her wine. "Maybe I'm not strong enough to travel with the Doctor anymore." 

Donna smiled softly at her. "Did I ever tell you about the first time I met the Doctor?" Rose shook her head, her expression confused. "It's my wedding day, I'm halfway down the aisle and suddenly I get zapped away into this glowy green spaceship, and there's this tall skinny bloke with tears in his eyes wandering around telling me how _I can't be there_ and _this is impossible_ and on and on. I thought he'd abducted me, and when I noticed your top flung over one of those bars in the corner I thought that just proved it. He just about broke down again when he saw it, even in the middle of all the 'impossible' going on you were just about all he could think of. That whole day, the robots and giant spiders and all of it, he could still barely function. He's _lost_ without you, and he's terrified of that happening again. What you two have, it's...it's special." Donna swallowed. "I've never had anything like that. Don't let him spoil it just because he's acting like a typical man and trying to make it seem like it's your fault that he can't live without you." 

Rose sniffled and took a rather large gulp of wine. "No wonder he feels like he can really talk to you," she said after swallowing. 

"He said that?" Donna was a bit astounded. She'd always thought she was badgering the Doctor into opening up to her; it had never occurred to her that he did so because he was really wanted to. 

Rose was smiling at her. "He didn't have to." She stood up from the table. "Cheers," she said, nodding towards the empty dishes. Donna watched her leave the room, feeling uncharacteristically peaceful. She started to realize that she really did have a place where she still fit on the TARDIS, as a good friend to these two people. As long as she could talk them down, be the voice of reason, she figured the three of them might just be all right. 

******** 

He was slumped on the bed with his head in his hands when Rose walked into their bedroom. Looking up at her face, his heart ached with the thought of how badly he had hurt her. "Rose," he said, his voice coming out hoarse. He stood up quickly, wanting to go to her, but afraid of how she would react. 

"Doctor—" 

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—" 

"I know you didn't." 

He moved toward her and then she was rushing toward him and they met in a fierce hug. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "Rose, you are brave and strong and what happened at Canary Wharf wasn't your fault. It was mine. And I don't want—" 

"It was no one's fault, Doctor." She pulled out of his embrace and led him over to the bed, where they sat down together. "We can't go on like this, avoiding danger. It's not right."

"Can we not ... talk about it right now?"

"I think we have to," she said, squeezing his hand. 

He sighed. "The thing is ... I'm afraid of losing you again," he admitted with terrible reluctance. 

"I know." She stroked his cheek, her fingers brushing over his sideburn. 

"I want you to be safe. All I've ever wanted was for you to be safe."

"And all _I've_ ever wanted was to be by your side. Which means sometimes I won't be safe."

He closed his eyes and swallowed. "I know," he whispered hoarsely.

"I'm sorry I shouted at you." 

"I'm sorry I shouted too." He ran his hand over her hair, and Rose closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. "Fighting with you is horrible," he said after a minute. "Let's never do that ever again." 

Rose chuckled, her breath hitching. "If only." The underlying issue wasn't resolved, he knew that, yet the Doctor was surprised at how relieved he felt to have it out in the open. Threading her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, she looked up and gave him a watery smile. "There is one good thing about fighting, you know." 

His eyebrows went up. "What could possibly be good about fighting?" 

Leaning up, Rose opened her mouth against his. He met her kiss eagerly, and after a long moment Rose broke the kiss and gasped for breath. "Making up afterwards," she whispered. 

The first time was quick and a little bit desperate, but powerfully erotic for both of them. Afterwards, they held each other close, cocooned in the warmth of the large bed, neither wanting to lose contact with the other. "I love you so much," he murmured into her skin. Delicate kisses and touches led to renewed desire so soon that it surprised them both. Rose pushed him onto his back and, throwing one leg over his body, positioned herself and slid down onto him easily. 

Sitting upright, she barely moved, just trailed her hands over his chest, her fingernails scraping his skin. The Doctor bent his knees, digging his heels into the mattress for purchase to try to establish a rhythm, but Rose just grinned and shook her head. "You be still now. This is my show to run." She lifted off of him as far as she could, then after an endless few seconds, sank down again. 

"Ah, Rose - that's ..." She repeated the move a few times, each time wringing a groan out of him but going too slow to get him any closer to release. "You are so beautiful," he murmured, his hands resting on the tops of her thighs. 

Rose smiled down serenely and undulated her hips once, making him gasp. She was torturing him. That's what it was, Rose was torturing him. 

"Do that again." 

And now her grin widened, with her tongue peeking out between her teeth in that way that he loved. "You mean this?" She rolled her hips again, allowing him to slide out partway before she sank back onto him again. _Please just keep doing that,_ he thought, but she didn't - one time and she was still again. 

"How long are you planning to keep this up?" he bit out. 

"Keep what up?" she asked. 

"Driving me insane," and then - oh, she did something that made him realize she had control over certain muscles that it was completely unfair for her to have control over. 

He groaned. "Now do _that_ again." 

"You're very demanding, aren't you?" 

_"Please."_

She squeezed him again from the inside, then added a hip roll for good measure. Tired of being obedient, he lifted his pelvis and thrust up into her as hard as he could. Rose gasped. "Now, now, that's against the rules." 

"Sod the rules." He gripped her thighs more tightly. 

Rose took pity on him and started to move, rocking back and forth on him in a slow, shallow rhythm, but it was enough. "How much do you love this?" she asked. 

"I _love_ it," he moaned. 

"You love what?" 

"Fucking you." He noticed with some satisfaction that she flushed at his use of vulgarity and began moving faster, harder. 

Rose let her head fall back and she ran one hand over one of her breasts and then down, into the curls between her legs. "How badly do you want me?" 

"Let me show you." 

She looked at him, one eyebrow arched. "Show me how?" 

He was surprised even as the words had spilled out of his mouth, and he wondered belatedly if it was a mistake, suggesting this, but he pressed on. The Doctor lifted one of his arms and ghosted his fingertips across her forehead. "I can touch you here. We can ... we can feel what the other is feeling. If you want." 

Her game forgotten, he could almost see the thoughts playing across her mind, the desire flashing in her eyes. "Show me." 

He surged up, flipping her onto her back in a move acrobatic enough to stay joined with her. He kissed her - a deep, wet kiss - and then propped himself on one elbow so that he could gently position his fingers on one of her temples. "Just relax," he whispered. She met his eyes, her own wide and trusting. 

The Doctor hesitated for just a moment. This was a deeper level of intimacy than he had thought he would share with anyone ever again, deeper than Rose would probably ever realize. But if the last days had proved anything, it was that he needed to yield himself to this woman, and that doing so made him stronger, made him whole. He entered her mind, at the same time leaving the door of his own mind open wide so that she could share the experience with him. 

It was the most sensual thing he'd ever experienced. The loop of her pleasure at feeling his pleasure at experiencing her pleasure fed upon itself, overpowering him. He became aware that he'd stilled inside of her, stunned motionless by the impact of it all. Gathering the shards of their shared consciousness back together a bit, he refocused his attention on the mechanics of their lovemaking. Beginning to move again in long, slow strokes, he kept his fingers at her forehead, maintaining the link between them. When she cried out, he had to echo it. The Doctor's perception sharpened involuntarily - he could hear the faint floral undertones of her moisturizer, and taste the small, shallow murmurs of her breathing. 

"Oh God," Rose groaned, and the words felt strange as they dropped from his lips as well. He was hyperaware of every point of contact between them, sending distilled ecstasy straight up his spine. 

His climax came upon him quite suddenly, as did Rose's, the combination of the two twisting his stomach, wrenching unseemly cries from his throat and making his eardrums bulge from the intensity of it. As he came down , the Doctor became suddenly and disturbingly aware of something: He was alone. His mind, though still joined with Rose's, was decidedly isolated. 

His eyelids flew open. Rose's did not. She was unconscious. 

It was only a handful of seconds - less than a minute, all told, but it was only his superior sense of the passage of time that kept it from feeling like hours. Later he would barely remember withdrawing from her, checking her heart rate, checking her breathing, or shouting her name. When her lashes finally fluttered and her eyes started to open, relief flooded his system like a shot of some powerful drug. 

"Ow." Rose's arm came up and she pressed the heal of her hand against her forehead. 

"Rose! I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't know-" 

"Stop talking so loud," she moaned, her eyes squeezing shut. "Wow, that's a hell of a headache." 

"I can fix that. Hang on." He leapt out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown, then dashed from the bedroom and to the infirmary, where he grabbed something out of a drawer and ran back. He sat on the edge of the bed. "This is like an icepack, but it has pain medication that you will absorb through the skin. It will set you right in no time, I promise." He was scrunching the icepack in slightly trembling hands, breaking the internal seals to release the cold and the drug. The Doctor gently laid it across her forehead. 

After a minute, Rose sighed with relief. "Thank you." 

"Better?" 

"Much." Rose opened one eye and regarded him. Then, quite unexpectedly, she burst into peals of laughter. 

"What could possibly be funny?" 

"You ... you ... " She grabbed the icepack with one hand to keep it from falling as she doubled over in giggles. "You came so hard, it knocked me unconscious!" 

"Well, it wasn't ... I mean, I didn't ... that's not entirely accurate." 

"No? How would you describe it then?" 

He paused, his mouth opening and closing. Finally he said, "It's also not entirely inaccurate," which just made Rose laugh harder, tears streaming from her eyes. "I still don't see what's so funny." 

Rose started to calm down, every exhale an audible little moan. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt your feelings. It's just ... you really don't think it's a little bit funny?" 

"I should have shielded my mind. I didn't realize it would be so intense." He stretched out next to her on the bed. "I'm sorry." 

"Stop apologizing, you're forgiven. And you'll know better next time." 

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her with wide eyes. "Next time? I really don't think that's a good idea." 

Rose pouted at him. "Oh, come on. I'm sure now that you know what it's like, you won't let me pass out again, right?" 

"No, I won't." 

"Because I'll tell you one thing." She rolled over and gave him a peck on the cheek. 

"What?" 

"Before the whole getting knocked unconscious thing, it was the best sex I've ever had." 

"Really?" 

"Really." 

He smiled in spite of himself. "Rose, promise me something." 

"Hmm?" She snuggled against him and sighed with contentment. 

"Never tell anyone about this." 

She giggled again. "I promise." 

They quieted for awhile, the Doctor brushing his hand repeatedly over the top of her head where it lay cushioned on his chest, memorizing the weight of her, the heat of her breath on his skin, the exaggerated and chemical coconut smell of whatever hair product she'd used that morning. Finally he spoke: "Where do you want to go?" 

She sat up, looked to him with confusion. "Why are you asking me?" Poking at his chest: "Designated driver, remember?" 

"Anywhere you want to go, anything you want to see, I'll take you there. I'm so sor..." Rose placed her hand over his mouth. 

"Shhhh, you said that already." He grinned under her fingers, darted his tongue out to lick them. Rose squealed and pulled her hand away, flopping down and curling up to him again, looking pensive. "I don't know," she answered finally. "I don't like all this _planning_. Can't we just set the TARDIS to random and see where we end up?" 

He was sure that the dread that had settled in the pit of his stomach must show on his face. The last time he'd done that, he and Donna had landed on the Ood Sphere, and had nearly been shot before Ood Sigma stepped in. The Doctor thought, at this point, the sight of Rose staring down the barrel of a gun would probably kill him. But as he'd told Mickey, standing in a museum all those years ago, he couldn't dangle the universe in front of Rose and refuse to give it to her for fear she'd get hurt. He attempted what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "That's what we'll do then. Always liked that word, random. Random House, random number, random acts of kindness. Rolls off the tongue - rrrrando..." 

She silenced his mouth with a kiss.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a retelling of the events of "Fury", but from the Doctor's point-of-view. I hung back on this chapter and just added little bits here and there, giving fid_gin an opportunity to write this Fury remix.

It was his fault, that was the worst part. Well, no, not the worst...but he wouldn't allow himself to imagine that. He never should have allowed Rose to wander off, he _knew_ she was _always_ wandering off, he'd just hoped that perhaps on this, their first proper dangerous adventure since her return, she might tone it back a bit. But she'd wandered off just like always, got into trouble just like always and been zapped into custody in a flash of blinding red light just as he and Donna had come 'round the corner looking for her. And trespassing for an unaccompanied female, the Uytac equivalent of an officer had explained to them, carried a punishment of immediate death. 

But she _couldn't_ be dead. He'd know...wouldn't he? His terror at the thought almost felt like a physical blow to the chest. 

The Doctor walked faster, his long legs covering the ground in great strides as his coat flapped around them. 

"Doctor?" Donna called from several yards back, running at short intervals to attempt to keep up with him. He knew she was deeply concerned about Rose's fate, but he didn't answer her. "Doctor, where are we going?" 

"To appeal on Rose's behalf," he said grimly, without slowing or turning around. 

"But what if she's already..." 

He whirled on her, his sudden stop causing her to walk right into him. He took in the way she stepped back and her frightened expression at the fearsome sight he knew he presented. "She. Is. _Not._ " His teeth were bared, his voice quiet, controlled and dangerous. Without another word he turned and began to run. 

The palace was not nearly so grand as its name suggested. More of a giant, many-tiered office building, it conspired to slow them down with numerous security checkpoints, weapon detectors ("These things never detect sonic," the Doctor whispered to Donna after they'd cleared the last one, flipping said sonic device high into the air and catching it), and sonic detectors ("Uh, Donna, could you hold my...keys?" he asked after she had already gone through the bleeping arch, handing her the sonic screwdriver around the edge of the detector while the sleepy guard sat by, oblivious). Finally they came to what appeared to be a receptionist surrounded by stacks of paperwork and who seemed to take a perverse glee in making them as frustrated and miserable as it probably was. 

"Are you a family member?" 

"What? No!" The Doctor's hair stood out at every angle, teased to extremes by the constant sweeping of his hands through it. He was aware that the being behind the desk eyed him a bit suspiciously, as though he were some raving madman, and supposed that, in a way, he was. _She's alive,_ that little voice repeated in his head, trying to be reassuring but mostly just sounding desperate. _She's alive she's alive she's alive. She has to be._

"Only family members may appeal on the behalf of the condemned," the creature intoned, turning its one eye back down to the chart it seemed to fill out by brushing its fingertips across the page. 

"I'm ... she's my ..." The Doctor found with dismay that he had no word for what she was to him, at least, none that he felt like sharing with this clerical denizen. 

But his stammering had some effect, as it rolled its eye back up to meet both of his. "Your what?" 

"Consort," he spat out, despising the word. 

The receptionist hummed thoughtfully. "Outside of blood relations, human partnerships have no jurisdiction on Uytacid." 

_"I'm not human!"_ the Doctor shouted. The creature laid back its antennae in annoyance, seeming to signal to two guards standing near the entrance they'd just come from, who slowly began lumbering toward them. 

"Oh for god's sake, come on!" Donna shouted, grabbing the Doctor's hand and yanking him away from the desk, toward a swinging door which had not quite latched after the last employee had walked through it. They darted through and he soniced the door shut behind them, cutting off the immediate threat from reaching them, but surely not for long. 

Donna was already running down the hallway, peering through glass windows in each door, and he dashed to join her. 

"Consort?" she asked breathlessly. 

He winced. "It's a very patriarchal society, Donna, I had to use a term they would understand." All of the rooms seemed to be tiny courtrooms, with the addition of what looked like the modern equivalent of a guillotine in each one. They moved faster, taking opposite sides of the hallway, and the Doctor forced himself to suppress the panic that was making his gorge rise. He started to hear louder and louder pounding coming from the door he had locked. 

"Here!" Donna shouted. "She's in here!" 

They crashed through the door of the small courtroom just as the hallway door came flying open, and again the Doctor barricaded them. His eyes went immediately to Rose and his hearts lurched at how defenseless she looked, kneeling, bent over that ghastly machine with a large and very gruesome-looking blade positioned high over her bare neck, ready to slice down. There were two guards on either side of Rose, holding her so that she couldn't move, and what appeared to be a judge behind a high bench. The judge would be the one in control of the blade, so the Doctor focused on him.

"You don't want to do anything to hurt her," he said quickly, swallowing against the sour terror in his mouth. "She is a very important off-worlder, and if you hurt her, the forces of the Shadow Proclamation will be here before you can count to ten. Now release her."

"She violated our law; the Shadow Proclamation won't interfere," the judge said, but he looked nervous. His hand moved to hover over the button that would end Rose's life.

"Don't even think about it, E.T.!" Donna shouted. With a quick flourish of the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor disabled the judge's remote control of the guillotine, the button on his desk sparking and smoking satisfactorily. The judge ducked behind his desk, terrified, but the guards began to advance on them. Donna picked up a chair, holding them off like she was a lion tamer, and the Doctor ran over and began to work at unfastening Rose's bonds.

"What took you so long?" Rose joked when her neck was free and she could look him in the eye. He didn't share her humour. 

The door was rattling; soon they would be set upon by more Uytac guards. Their two guards, antennae twitching, seemed to have decided that Donna did not know how to wield the chair as any sort of real weapon, and advanced on her. They were wrong; Donna swung the chair, scoring a blow against one guard's head, dropping him like a stone. The other guard backed away.

"Judge's chambers!" the Doctor shouted, and they all ran around the high desk against the wall and through the only available door. 

It did not lead to the judge's chambers. 

"Oh _yuck_ ," Donna howled as they slid off the sheer side of the palace and landed on a heap of what appeared to be...yep, smelled like garbage. "Who has a back door that leads to the dump?" 

"Welllll," the Doctor started, "I suppose they have to have somewhere to dump all the bodies they must go through every day." Donna and Rose both paled. "Relax. None out here yet today, must be a slow day for justice. All the same..." He grabbed Rose's hand and the three of them ran, or stumbled, the few remaining feet to solid ground, then took off at a dead run. After ten minutes or so, the TARDIS loomed before them, and the Doctor felt relief wash over him. It was going to be all right, it was... 

On his right, Rose shouted out with glee, looking back over her shoulder and smiling. She was having _fun_. 

The rage hit him, hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. 

He seethed as he programmed the TARDIS flight sequences, sending them in orbit somewhere between Neptune and the 32nd century. Stupid, _stupid_ girl. Stupid _Time Lord_. She'd promised him Forever, and once again like a lovestruck boy still in his first hundred years of life he'd believed her. Did she think this was a _game_? Did she think, if something happened to her, that he could just get _over_ it? The Doctor looked down as he twirled the dimensional calibrator and saw his hands were shaking. Agitation boiled in his veins, cascading from his two hearts into every incensed appendage until he felt he needed to run. To break. To _explode_. He actually thought he might regenerate from the strength of it. 

But he didn't regenerate. He heard Donna behind him, asking Rose if she was all right, but didn't stay to hear her answer. The Doctor slipped silently from the console room, toward the bedroom he now shared with Rose, hoping for her safety she wouldn't follow him, but guiltily praying she would. 

He continued to fume inwardly as he walked the long corridors, in much the same fashion as only a few days prior, when Rose had had the nerve, the _cheek_ to be angry at him for trying to protect her. And he'd felt badly! He'd apologized! A Lord of Time, prostrating himself before a human girl and begging her forgiveness! He'd as much as put his own ship into her hands, asking her where she wanted to go as though he were some intergalactic taxi driver, and the TARDIS had, through pure random chance, landed them on probably the worst destination planet possible outside of Skaro. Fixating on _that_ little tidbit for a moment, he turned his anger upon the ship and kicked a wall, jamming his toes painfully inside his trainer. Swearing in Gallifreyan, he continued his path toward the bedroom, now limping slightly. 

He'd forgotten his place, pure and simple. Letting himself be ruled by his - the Doctor struggled for the appropriately rude nomenclature - by his _dick_ , instead of his brain. Ignoring the niggling little voice which tried to remind him that the offending organs in question were more probably his _hearts_ , the Doctor came to rest at the centre of the bedroom, breathing deeply and attempting to get himself under control. 

When Rose found him minutes later, he felt, more than heard, her entrance. He wanted more than anything to remain furious with her, clinging to it like a drowning man. As long as he could stay focused, stay enraged, he could hold himself buoyant over the horror creeping in, seeping through the cracks of his stormy facade. He'd almost _lost_ her. _Again._

Before he could gage her emotional state or her reaction, before he could even formulate his next course of action, the Doctor turned and grabbed her, smashing his lips to hers. He wanted, he _needed_ to have her, in this moment. Needed to assure himself of her corporeal reality, pressed against him, under him. He would pin her here, an exotic insect in the album of his memories, so that when he lost her - which he _would_ , oh _god_ , no matter what – he would have this, filed away under the girl he loved, but couldn't keep.

She didn't fight him, he was grateful for that. Indeed, she returned his kisses, if it could be called 'kissing', this violent osculation, this devouring. She yielded to him, and it was her passivity that kept him from just ripping her blouse from her slight frame, fumbling the buttons of it instead with hands that still shook, though with fear, impatience or irritation he could no longer tell. _Please, please_ , he thought, barely aware that he was speaking the mantra aloud as well as one of her buttons popped off under his clumsy fingers. Calmly, she pushed him away to finish the job herself. He watched her carefully as he shed his own clothes, pouncing again as soon as she stood to push down her jeans and underpants, sinking his teeth in her neck and sucking the blood to the surface. Rose gasped softly and rotated her hips against him, stepping out of the last of her clothing, blinding him for a moment with intense desire.

“This is why I never...” he started to say against her bitten skin. But there was no pleasant way to end that sentence, nothing that wouldn't lay his soul any more bare than his body already was. His mind in turmoil, his cock already painfully hard from his earlier furor and from the desperate need to make love to her, no, to _fuck_ her, the Doctor crushed her to their bed and buried himself inside of her.

Rose was wet, at least, and again he was grateful, realizing with a sort of dazed surprise that he'd not even touched her, not assured that she was ready for him. Too far gone to feel ashamed, he began to thrust wildly against her, into her, with none of the measured calculation of their usual lovemaking. He was shocked at how good this felt, this claiming. He was too overcome to speak, too far gone to open his eyes and look at her. Somewhere through the haze of anger and ecstasy he felt her come, heard her cries. It only spurred him to a further state of frenzy, driving into her as deep as their bodies would allow, nearly growling in the back of his throat and completely unaware when he began to speak. _“Don't...don't leave...don't leave...”_

He came suddenly, opening his mouth but unable to utter a sound. He slowly became aware that Rose was talking, smoothing her hands down his back and telling him she loved him, that she wasn't leaving. The Doctor knew better. His fury ebbed away with his orgasm, leaving only melancholy and a hollow sense of self-disgust at his behaviour. He wasn't sure how long he stayed on top of her, afraid to look her in the eye.

He withdrew from her and rolled onto his back. "I'm sorry." The apology sounded empty to his ears.

"For what?"

Finally he forced himself to look at her. "I hurt you." The lurid, red bite mark on her neck was a sharp reminder of his actions, symbolic of how truly out-of-control he had been.

"It’s all right. It felt good at the time." There was a tentative smile on her lips, and she reached over to stroke his face. The kindness was so much more than he deserved. "This is going to happen again, you know. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m jeopardy-friendly."

"I know. I don't remember it being so terrifying before." 

"I'm sorry I got into trouble," she said. Hugging her fragile little body to him, he searched in vain for the words to explain to her that today was the least of it - the debacle on Uytacid was pretty tame compared to some of their former adventures. No devils, no Daleks, no Cybermen or other old enemies come back to haunt him, just a misunderstanding with local law enforcement, really. It was the fact that this was never going to go away, this gnawing fear. How could he explain that every time she slept, that was seven or eight more hours he'd lost with her? How could he verbalize the sensation of hurtling towards a conclusion to their lives together that would, at its best, be devastating?

The Doctor said none of these things, only held her to him as she eventually dozed, and he fought off sleep and its neverending dreams of failing levers, guillotines and all the other ways in which the universe seemed to conspire to take Rose Tyler from his life.

When she began to mumble in her sleep an hour or so later, the Doctor resigned himself to getting up so his restlessness wouldn't disturb her. His limbs felt heavy and sluggish as he dressed – he felt actually, physically weighed down by his mental state. This was intolerable.

The Doctor only glanced at himself as he passed a mirror, saw a disheveled and unhappy-looking man whom he decided he did not want to take a closer look at. Pausing briefly to sniff the air and assure himself that he did not reek of sex as badly as he might have feared, he opened the bedroom door which Rose had closed behind her earlier, and made his way back toward the belly of his ship.


	6. Chapter 6

Donna turned around and saw him standing in the doorway of the media room. She clicked off the telly immediately. "Good lord, are you all right?"

The Doctor, in only his shirtsleeves and barefoot, dragged himself over to the sofa where she was sitting and collapsed next to her. Elbows on knees, his hands went into his hair and he sighed. "No. I'm really, really not all right."

She decided now was not the time to point out that his shirt was buttoned up incorrectly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"How am I going to do this?" The Doctor looked up at her, and the look in his eyes struck her like a blow. 

"Do what?" Donna asked softly.

"Go out there and be who I need to be, do what I need to do, and not be constantly terrified that I'm going to lose her?"

"I think it might just take time, for both of you. Time to really get over what happened before."

"She could die. Any day, she could be killed, and I don't know if I can bear it."

"Doctor," she said. "What would happen if _you_ were beheaded?"

His mouth opened, then closed again. "I...don't know. I'd die, I suppose."

Donna reached over and put her hand on his shoulder, trying to soothe him. "Any of us could die, even you. If we were all living on Earth, leading boring lives and going to jobs and eating beans on toast, we still could die."

"Yes, but the probability—"

"This is the life that Rose wants. You act like you're the only one who ever has to say goodbye, but she's left her entire family behind! She wants to be with you, and to share these amazing adventures with you. And I think she would say that if it cuts her life short, it still would have been worth it."

"I'm going to have so little time with her as it is."

Donna frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"One human lifespan. One short, human lifespan, over in the blink of an eye. Donna, to be honest with you, I'm not entirely convinced that if I get sixty years with her, that it will be worth the pain once she's gone. I have to live on."

"Oh, stop it," she said, and the Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "I've heard the whole curse-of-the-Time-Lords speech before, thank you. Blimey, were they all downers like you? Sixty years or more, and all that happiness you'll have! How can you say that won't be worth it?" He shrugged and ran his hands through his hair, and Donna decided to take a different tactic. "Tell me about when you met her."

He looked at her. "Why?"

"After all the time we've been mates, are you questioning my methods? Now talk, alien boy."

"Donna..." She gave him a warning look, and he sighed. "It...was my first visit back to Earth after the Time War, in that incarnation - my last one. I came across some trouble -"

"That sort of goes without saying," Donna said, smirking.

"Shop window dummies. Animated shop window dummies. Little trouble with the Nestene Consciousness. That led me to this department store, where they were concentrated, and I was getting ready to blow the whole place up when I met this girl ..." His eyes were far away and dreamy. "She was brave, and she was _thinking_ , trying to reason out what was going on. I wasn't looking for anyone. I ... I was lonely, terribly lonely, but I didn't think I deserved to be anything else. Not after ..."

"After the Time War," Donna supplied.

"Yeah. But she kept turning up, getting into trouble - I couldn't get rid of her. Which was a good thing, 'cause she saved my life."

"And you invited her to travel with you."

"It felt so good to be with someone again; I had almost forgotten what good felt like. She ... she made me better. I was broken, and she made me better."

Donna plucked one of his hands off his lap and held it. "I know you feel overwhelmed by all this relationship nonsense, and I know you're afraid of losing her. I get that. But seeing the way you are with her - you're absolutely right, she makes you better. You just have to have a little faith, I think."

"I do have faith." The Doctor's eyes were far away, focused on something only he seemed to be able to see. "If I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in her," he whispered. Donna got the sense that these were more than idle words, that he was remembering something very important. He turned to look at her. "Thank you, Donna," he said, pulling her into a hug. "She's not the only one who makes me better."

"Stop it."

"I'm sorry about all this; I know I've behaved intolerably with you as well."

Donna snorted, pulling out of his arms. "Maybe a bit, but I'll forgive you."

"I should probably go talk to Rose." 

"Talk, right. Is that what you kids are calling it nowadays?"

 

***

Rose had woken up and, finding herself alone, was unable to go back to sleep. She got up briefly to pull on a T-shirt and crawled back under the covers, deciding to try to read for a bit. It wasn't long before the Doctor came back into the room.

"Your shirt's done up wrong," Rose commented.

The Doctor looked down and barked out a laugh. "I bet Donna noticed too. Ah, well." He fixed it as he sat on the bed near her feet. "You must be tired of hearing me apologize to you."

Rose put her book aside and shrugged. "What are you apologizing for now?"

"Do you really need to ask that? After the way I forced myself on you?" 

"Forced yourself," Rose scoffed. "As if I couldn't have stopped you if I'd wanted to. In case you didn't notice, I was enjoying it quite a lot." Smirking, she added, "I mean, I may have to tie you to the headboard at some point to even the score."

The Doctor's mouth fell open and he flushed adorably. "I ... would not be averse to that."

Rose had mostly intended the comment as a joke, but her mind was suddenly awash in very wicked images which she carefully filed away for a later date. "I'll ... um, keep that in mind." She cleared her throat and took his hand. "Are we okay?"

He exhaled audibly. "It's going to be hard for me to see you in danger, harder than it used to be."

"I know." She squeezed his hand, feeling the comforting press of his fingertips against her skin. "It's going to be hard for me too, you know. I'm not the only one prone to getting into life-threatening scrapes. We're just going to have to look out for each other and ..." She trailed off, shrugging.

"And have a little faith?" he supplied.

Rose nodded at that. "Yeah."

"I loved you before, but now ... Rose, you have to understand, it's been so long since I've let myself be this close to anyone. I had forgotten what it felt like, or I don't know, perhaps I _never_ knew. You've torn through barriers that I didn't even know I had, and I'm ... raw. But I know that I can't behave the way I've been behaving and expect you to stay with me. So I promise," the Doctor said quietly, "I will do my best to change my behaviour."

"Doctor?" Rose interrupted. He silenced and quirked his head, listening. "Don't ever say that again," she instructed. "It took me nearly a quarter of a century to get you, don't you _dare_ go trying to turn yourself into a different man for me."

He shook his head. "Rose—"

"No, I'm serious. I love _you_ , Doctor: a Time Lord who is sometimes over-protective and sometimes daft and sometimes hurtful, and who also has been known on occasion to wander off and need saving. He's also brilliant and brave and kind and ... and that's what you do when you love someone - you take the good with the bad."

He smiled gently. "Okay." He bent to plant a kiss to her wrist. "I promise to worry about you. To be over-protective and, occasionally, though unnecessarily..." he gave an egotistical little sniff, "...jealous. And I promise to always, _always_ come to your rescue, except in cases when you come to mine." Each 'always' was punctuated with a kiss up the length of her arm, toward her neck.

Rose sighed, bringing her hands to the back of his head. "I promise to keep wandering off and getting into trouble, and to make you love every minute of it."

"Mmm," he agreed, nibbling at her chin. When she guided his head to bring his mouth to hers, he responded instantly, kissing her slowly and meticulously. He moaned against her lips when they opened for him, lost in the sweet warmth of her. "Do we get to make up now?" he whispered when the kiss broke.

Rose's brow furrowed. "Were we fighting?"

"Oh yes," he said, pushing her hastily-donned T-shirt up and continuing to map her neck and breasts with his mouth. He took one nipple between his lips, laving it to a small peak and sucking gently. She gave a throaty moan as she pressed her head back into her pillow, scraping her nails through his hair and arching up toward him.

"A horrible fight," he continued after releasing her, moving down her belly to the creamy skin below her navel and just above the small thatch of soft brown curls which betrayed her natural hair colour. He had told her before that he loved to brush his lips across this downy strip, which he did now, and she strained toward him. "In fact," he murmured against her, settling between her thighs. "I think I have quite a bit of making up to do." He nudged her legs further apart and her knees bent reflexively. The Doctor leaned forward and kissed her as gently and as thoroughly as he had kissed her mouth. Rose cried out at the gentle, swiping pressure of his tongue - one moment taking long, slow licks which made her squirm, the next lapping intently at her clit. He moaned with her, his hands exerting a soft pressure on the inside of her legs to keep them spread. Rose craned her neck up slightly off the pillow, needing to see the Doctor doing this for her, to her. 

The sight of his head moving nearly imperceptibly between her thighs as he continued to unhurriedly enjoy her, his hair sticking up and disheveled, was almost more stimulating than what he was actually doing. She mewed, already so close, thrusting herself against his face, and when he brought one hand around to slide two fingers inside of her, pressing upward and working them in the same rhythm as his sucking, she came almost immediately. Through the waves of her pleasure and her high cries, Rose was barely conscious of the fact that he was crying out as well, encouraging her. After her hips had settled back down against wrinkled bedlinens and her toes had begun to uncurl, she pulled him up and away from her hyper-sensitized flesh and kissed him full on the mouth. She knew he enjoyed this, too, her tasting herself on him.

She became aware that he was struggling with the fastenings of his trousers as he kissed her, trying to slip them over his straining erection and his bony hips while still maintaining contact with her mouth. Smiling against his lips, she reached out to help him, unbuttoning his shirt and pushing it off his thin shoulders. 

“Rose,” he said after finally pulling away to kick off his clothing. Turning back to her: “May I ...?”

She suppressed a giggle, mindful that he was still smarting from what he perceived to be his violent actions earlier. “Of course you may.”

The Doctor crawled over her, reached down and made an adjustment, then slid luxuriously into her. He set a pace that was deceptively slow – after being his lover this last month, Rose could count the telltale signs of how close he was, already, to release. The soft, poetic diatribe he kept up in her ear of “Rose” and “yes” and “fuck”, the ragged rush of his increased breathing, the frantic _thudthud-whumpwhump_ of his two hearts as they raced, competing with each other, beating apart and then together as if they, themselves, were dancing. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to come again so soon, but then the Doctor whispered “Yes, love” hot in the shell of her ear and Rose found herself falling again, coming apart underneath him and leaving long scratches down his back which she knew from experience would fade unnaturally quickly.

He spoke as he came inside of her, repeating himself. “I love you, Rose. Always. As long as I live.” She sensed even through the opiate of post-orgasmic bliss that this was a huge admission for him – his love for her, his own mortality and his acceptance of his inability to ensure that she would be there to share in all of it, and she accepted it, gratefully.

As 'forever's went, it was pretty good.

 

***

 

The three of them were gathered together under the green glow of the TARDIS' central column.

"I've selected the twenty most likely worlds that Jenny could have reached, given the type of ship she was flying," the Doctor explained as he adjusted the helmic regulator. "And while we were on Messaline, I was able to take readings of the energy signatures of some of their engines. With any luck, we can pick up traces of her ship, making it slightly less of a wild goose chase than it otherwise would be."

"Sounds good to me," Rose said from her perch on the jump seat, smiling a cheeky smile at him. "What do you think, Donna?"

"I suppose it's as good a plan as any."

"It might be dangerous," the Doctor said, looking back and forth between them. "Who knows what sort of trouble we'll run into."

"Or it might be deadly dull," said Donna.

"Oi!" he said, stretching the exclamation into at least two syllables, "when has anything with me _ever_ been dull?"

Rose stood up and joined him at the console. "He's got a point there. So what are we waiting for?"

The usual mad flurry of flipped switches, twisted knobs, and thrown levers followed, with both women clinging to the console to avoid spilling onto the floor. When the TARDIS finally landed, Rose clapped her hands happily and dashed for the door. The Doctor let her go, putting on his coat as he and Donna brought up the rear. They emerged into a narrow alley, and soon found themselves in the center of a bustling spaceport. Species of all sorts, some humanoid, some not, hurried from here to there. The Doctor grinned at the riot of sound and color, and his grin only widened as he watched Rose take in the same view.

"So, does this look dull to you, Donna?" he asked, nudging his shoulder against hers.

"Not even a little bit," Donna enthused. "Well, what are you waiting for, space man? Let's go!"

The Doctor stopped, turning to face her. "Donna, I've been meaning to say ... you've been such a good friend to me, the best of friends. I know it might seem like I've been taking that for granted, but I haven't. I realize I've been neglecting you—"

"It's to be expected right now."

"Perhaps, but it's still got to bother you. I bet a part of you misses the way things were before."

"Only a small part," Donna admitted.

"Want to slap me?"

Donna's mouth dropped open. _"What?"_

"Go on! I give you my permission to give me a slap, just like old times." He tilted his head, turning one cheek towards her and jutting out his lower jaw just a bit. "Come on, this is a golden opportunity!" Donna just continued to stare at him. "No? All right, well, if you change your mind..." The Doctor turned back and looked her in the eye, his smile open and honest. "This isn't the end for us, Donna Noble. Just more adventures and more faces. The more the merrier! The last thing I want is to lose you before I have to."

"You're never gonna get rid of me, don't you worry."

The Doctor sighed. "Love is a powerful force, Donna, the most powerful force in the universe. Someday you'll find it, and you won't want to stay with me anymore after that happens."

Donna snorted. "Fat chance of that."

"A woman as smart and beautiful as you? It's only a matter of time before someone steals you away, and I think you'll find that it will happen when you least expect it." He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "But until that day comes ..." He held out his elbow to her and watched as Donna linked arms with him, then he turned and beckoned to Rose, offering her the other elbow. "Off we go into the unknown, ladies. Allons-y!"

_END_


End file.
